I wasn’t sure what title to give to this sermon today.  I thought about, “No more Mister Nice Guy”!  Over the last couple of months, as we’ve studied Mark, we’ve seen Jesus have some tough conversations.  But starting in chapter 11, there is a definite shift in the tone of Mark’s gospel.  Jesus has entered Jerusalem for his final week on earth.  The patient teacher who welcomed children and blessed them, who taught crowds of people for days on end and then out of compassion, fed them before sending them home, who cast out demons and healed the sick and showed pity for the suffering—Jesus our Gentle Shepherd–just cursed a fig tree for not having figs on it when it wasn’t even the season yet for figs!  That’s not very nice, is it?“Nice” is not a word I would use to describe the Jesus we see in Mark chapter 11.  After cursing the fig tree, Jesus entered the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers.  He was physically aggressive!  He tipped over the benches of the merchants selling doves.  He blocked the vendors from bringing more merchandise into the temple courts.  He had very harsh words for the people who were supposed to be helping faithful Jews offer sacrifices but instead were exploiting them.  “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it into a den of robbers!”  Jesus was FED UP with the unfair religious practices of his day.  He showed no mercy toward these business people, because their behavior was dishonest and destructive. No more Mister Nice Guy.This week I came across a clever definition of the word nice:  a pleasant, non-confrontational attitude that eventually kills you.  When I first read those words, I was surprised, because aren’t we taught our whole lives to be “nice”?  Isn’t being nice an important Christian value?  I have faced a considerable amount of criticism as a pastor for the times when my decisions have been perceived as “not nice”.  In my experience, not being nice is what kills you!But if we are being nice at the expense of our own values, we are not in fact being nice.  We are being unfair to ourselves.  Jesus said it is the truth that will set us free.  If we are being nice at the expense of what we know to be deeply true, we are lying to ourselves and ultimately contributing to our own demise.  Peace goes hand in hand with justice, not with nice-ness.Still, cursing the fig tree seems so unfair.  Jesus cursed the fig tree, and the next day, the disciples noticed that it had withered from the roots.  The entire tree was deadened.  Why would Jesus kill an innocent fig tree?  Maybe we should dismiss this as another confusing Bible mystery we will never understand.  This week I lamented, of all the stories in Mark, why did I pick this one to focus on?But as strange as the fig tree passage is, I’m glad we’re studying it.  Last Sunday night, a group of us met over Zoom to read the entire gospel of Mark aloud.  It took two hours and we all noticed, there is nothing extraneous in the gospel of Mark.  Every word is important.  So the fact that this incident is recorded means Mark thought it was important for us to know.But it seems so out of character for Jesus.  Jesus cursing the fig tree is the only negative miracle in Mark.  In fact, this is the only time in any of the gospels we see Jesus use his powers to destroy a living thing.  Even on the night Jesus was arrested, when someone from Jesus’ fan club took a sword and cut off the ear of a guard, Jesus reached out, touched the guard’s ear, and healed him.  If Jesus had mercy and compassion on a Roman guard coming to arrest him, why would he show such harsh judgment to the innocent fig tree?One theory is that the fig tree was out of synch.  It lacked integrity.  In March and April, Passover season, the fig trees normally were just starting to get their leaves.  The figs appeared in early summer when the tree’s leaves were full.  For some reason, the tree Jesus cursed was in full leaf but had no fruit yet.  Maybe it had been an unusually mild winter and warm early spring.  We don’t know.  But something about this tree was off, and it upset Jesus, because it symbolized much bigger problems.  Jesus anger in the temple courts later that day was literally the tipping point.  The whole book of Mark, we saw how the religious elite, who were charged with helping Jewish people connect with God, were in fact barriers to people connecting with God.  Mark repeatedly records that Jesus took issue with people who were apparently acting holy—but not being holy.  Just like the fig tree was out of synch with the season, many religious people were out of synch with God.  Destroying the fig tree was a way of foreshadowing that one day, God will destroy everything that is not pleasing to God.Recently I started reading a book about creativity by Julia Cameron.  She likes to think of the name God as an anacronym, for Good Orderly Direction.  Do you like that?  God is Good Orderly Direction.  Creativity comes from being in synch with God.  There is something holy, and ultimately creative, about following in good orderly direction the voice of God. The name God is also dog spelled backwards!  That fact has absolutely no merit except as a segue here so I can tell you a story about my dog growing up, Chipper.When I was in middle school, my mom’s friend called to say there was a stray dog hanging around their house.  They couldn’t find the owner, but the dog was friendly and appeared in good health. They already had a dog and didn’t want a second one, and she thought maybe we would like to have him?My parents decided we would drive over to my mom’s friend “just to take a look”.  But we already had a name picked out for him in the car before we even met him, Chipper, and that he turned out to be.  For a dog that had survived on the streets for a while, he certainly took quickly to living at our house.  He loved to sit by us on the sofa when we were watching television.  If you stopped petting him, he used his big Labrador retriever head to nudge your arm and get you paying attention to him again.  He was all black, and we loved to dress him up in my dad’s safety orange hunting hats and vests because our school colors were orange and black.  He didn’t like to play with toys.  He just wanted to be by our side.  Even my dad, who was initially resistant, began making him peanut butter toast every morning before any of the rest of us were out of bed.  Chipper had a great life at our house.But as much as he loved the indoor life, Chipper never lost his taste for wide open spaces, and he would occasionally slip his collar and go hunting for rabbits and deer on his own.  This was both gross and dangerous, because we lived on Route 6, the main highway through our area.  After a few bouts of this, we went to a horse tack shop and had an extra wide leather collar made for him, and that solved the problem for several years.Somehow, though, Chipper got loose one last time, and this time, he came home injured.  We took him to the vet and were told he was probably hit by a car and had a couple broken ribs, but in a few weeks, he’d be fine.  He seemed to be healing up okay, and one day I wasn’t thinking about his broken ribs, I was just sitting on the floor petting him like I had done a million times, when I must have touched a sore place on his body.  He came at me so fast!  Thankfully I got my hand up, and he bit deep into the fleshy base of my thumb, not my face.  From Chipper’s perspective, he had a good reason to bite me.   He was injured.  But from my dad’s perspective, that was the end for Chipper.  He was not going to keep a dog that threatened his family’s safety.  Out of love for me and the rest of my family, my dad took Chipper to the vet and had him put down.We live in a world where injured dogs literally and metaphorically bite!  We live in a world where a lot of things are out of synch.  The question is, what do we do about that?  One thing we do is keep the faith.  As Christians, we light two candles on our altar to remember that God is aware of creation’s distress.  We light one candle because Jesus, our light into the darkness, has come, and we light the second candle because Jesus will one day come again, and everything will be made right.  This new creation will come about through the cursing and destruction of everything that was not right in the old creation.What an amazing day that will be!  But for now, we live in between the candles.  We live in a field where the wheat and the weeds grow together.  We live in a world that is a mix of being in synch with God, and out of synch with God.  Should we just accept that as the ways things are?  Jesus told us not to judge, to look at the log in our own eye before examining the speck in someone else’s.  Who are we to challenge others?  Maybe when there’s conflict or injustice, we should just be nice. But I think Mark included the story of the withered fig tree to challenge us on that.  Already we have had enough evidence in this gospel to know, Jesus was not a “go along to get along” guy.  But in case we had any doubts, check this out.  Jesus cursed a fig tree for being out of synch with God.  Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers, destroyed the displays of the merchants, and blocked the path of those who sought to continue and propagate unfair and unholy behavior.  Ultimately, Jesus would lay down his life to destroy the power of evil.  And we are called to follow him!  The story of the withered fig tree has me thinking about how Jesus might be calling us to lay down our tendency to “be nice” rather than doing the hard work of challenging the things that are out of synch with God. That may sound daunting, but I think here at Lima we are already working hard on that.  We became a Reconciling Congregation because we believe our denomination’s views on human sexuality are out of synch with God.  Becoming a Reconciling Congregation could be interpreted as “not nice” to the people who disagreed and felt they needed to leave.  But to me, that decision reminds me of my dad, seeing his daughter get bit by the family dog, and taking steps to be sure that kind of wounding won’t happen again inside his house. More recently at Lima, we have become focused on learning about racism.  We are seeing how much pressure there has been on people of color to “be nice” and to go along to get along in American history, and in America today, and the backlash that happens when people of color don’t stay where society wants them to stay.  As white people, we are confronting the pressure we feel to “be nice” and not challenge the thinking of those who say there is no racism in America.  This is hard work!  Personally, I am lamenting the times I chose to be nice, and let a racially insensitive comment go rather than confront it.  I am sorry for the times I have been the fig tree, out of synch with God, my personal lack of integrity a symbol for a much greater problem in our midst.  I imagine you are, too.In Christian tradition, confession is always followed by pardon and invitation.  Let’s give thanks for God’s grace that continues to fertilize and nurture us, in the hopes that we will bear fruit.  Let’s give thanks for the Holy Spirit, who continues to beat out a rhythm of God’s love, and bids us to get in step in Good Orderly Direction.  For there is great power in being in synch with God.  Jesus said, if you are in synch with God, you can tell this mountain, throw yourself into the sea, and it will be done.  We can say to God, take this obstacle, take this evil that keeps people separated from you, separated from their best selves, separated from the abundant life you want for them, and throw it into the sea, and it will be done.  This will not be accomplished immediately; it will not be accomplished without heartache and backlash and suffering; and it will certainly not be accomplished by being nice.  But Jesus rose on the third day to prove that love always prevails.Jesus does not call us to be nice.  Instead, God offers us true peace, joy, hope and love.  Love that is willing to put some things down so abundant life can spring up.  As we move closer to Holy Week, what is God calling you to cut from your life so you can march better in synch in the Good Orderly Direction?  Amen.